Smicksburg Tales 1,2 & 3 (Amish Knitting Circle, Amish Friends Knitting Circle & Amish Knit Lit Cirlce ~ Complete Series: 888 pages for Granny Weaver Lovers and 30+ Amish Recipes Read online

  Amish Knitting Circle

  Smicksburg Tales 1

  Amish Friends Knitting Circle

  Smicksbug tales 2

  Amish Knit Lit Circle

  Smicksburg Tales 3

  by

  KAREN ANNA VOGEL

  Published by Lamb Books

  Second Edition 2013

  Copyright 2011 Karen Anna Vogel

  This book is a work of fiction. The

  names, characters, places, and incidents are products of

  the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and

  are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to

  persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or

  organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Contact the author on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/VogelReaders

  Learn more the author at: www.karenannavogel.com

  Visit her blog, Amish Crossings, at www.karenannavogel.blogspot.com

  Dedication

  To the real Amish women who inspire the character of Granny Weaver.

  My husband, children, family and friends who believe in my ‘writing mission’ of seeing women spun together and then spun out into a hurting world, giving hope.

  &

  To Jesus Christ,

  the One

  who keeps me spun together

  in His love.

  Psalm 139

  INTRODUCTION

  Pickwick Papers (Charles Dickens), Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Conan Coyle),and Anne of Green Gables (Lucy Maud Montgomery), have two things in common; they started as continuing short stories and became classics. I’ve always felt we should learn from the best, and to me, a continuing short story invited readers to participate in the storyline, helping the author see their blind sides.

  Amish Knitting Circle would have been a different story had it not been for reader input. The character, Maryann, would have been terminated if my younger sister hadn’t clucked her tongue and said, “You can’t kill her!” There are characters that were going to move away from Smicksburg, but readers protested. Then there’s the character of Lavina, who was going to be in just one episode. Readers just loved this hurting teenager, so I made her a major character.

  The story seemed to really take on deeper meaning when readers started to call themselves, “one of Granny’s girls”. Many said they didn’t have a granny they could talk to, and were prompted to go to other older woman for advice. This is the Amish way of thinking, and I hope our culture shifts to make it an American way again. Respect for the elderly and the sage advice they give needs to be restored.

  Granny also taught many how to pray. Her “casting off prayers” became popular as each episode ended with Granny Weaver casting her cares on the Lord. This became a mainstay, since so many told me they learned to pray; Granny is frank and talks to God like she would a friend.

  I’m so encouraged because other readers are reaching out to women they see hurting, like Granny Weaver, believing women are stronger spun together. Oh women, we do need each other. We are more beautiful spun together; we are the nurturers of the world, and are needed.

  Table of Contents

  Amish Knitting Circle: Smicksburg Tales 1

  Amish-English Dictionary

  Episode 1 ~ Beginnings

  Episode 2 ~ Wedding Season

  Episode 3 ~ Thanksgiving

  Episode 4 ~ Snowflakes

  Episode 5 ~ Christmas Cookies

  Episode 6 ~ Old World Christmas

  Episode 7 ~ Beauty for Ashes

  Episode 8 ~ Wings to Fly

  Episode 9 ~ Spun Together

  Episode 10 ~ New Beginnings

  Clickable Recipe Index

  Amish Friends Knitting Circle

  Episode 1 ~ Planting Time

  Episode 2 ~Tea Kettles Sing

  Episode 3 ~Berry Picking Time

  Episode 4 ~Peaches & Cream

  Episode 5 ~The Bridge

  Episode 6 ~Putting Up

  Episode 7 ~The Pumpkin Patch

  Episode 8 ~Autumn Changes

  Clickable Recipe Index

  Amish Knit Lit Circle

  Episode 1 ~ Pride & Prejudice

  Episode 2 ~ Little Women

  Episode 3 ~ Anne of Green Gables

  Episode 4 ~ Dickens of a Tale

  Epsidoe 5 ~ Jane Austen’s Emma

  Episode 6 ~ Black Beauty

  Epside 7 ~ Pilgrim’s Progress

  Episode 8 ~ The Secret Garden

  Clickable Recipe Index

  Amish-English Dictionary

  Ach – oh

  Boppli – baby

  Brieder - brothers

  Daed - dad

  Danki – thank you

  Dawdyhaus – grandparent’s house

  Dochder – daughter

  Gmay - community

  Goot – good

  Guder mariyer – Good morning

  Jah - yes

  Kapp- cap; Amish women’s head covering

  Kinner – children

  Loblied - The second song sung in a church service, sometimes twenty-five minutes long.

  Nee- no

  Mamm – mom

  Oma – grandma

  Opa –grandfather

  Ordnung – order; set of unwritten rules

  Rumspringa – running around years, starting at sixteen, when Amish youth experience the Outsiders' way of life before joining the church.

  Wunderbar – wonderful

  Yinz – plural for you, common among Western Pennsylvania Amish and English. A Pittsburghese word, meaning ‘you ones’ or ‘you two’

  Amish Knitting Circle

  Smicksburg Tales 1

  Episode 1

  Granny Weaver took a piece of wool and fed it to her spinning wheel, watching it form a long strand of sturdy yarn. She thought of the women she’d been praying for; they were like separate pieces of wool that needed to come together as one strand. On their own they were easy to pull apart, like the wool sitting in her basket. White, brown, black and cream wool blended together made lovely yarn. She thought women could have more beautiful lives if they came together, too.

  Truth be told, she needed spun tighter with some women folk too. She still missed Abigail, her dear daughter-in-law, taken too soon. Her son, Roman, warned her not to take route 954 into Smicksburg, but she did. Granny always breathed a prayer of thanks that none of the girls were in the buggy with her. With Abigail gone, Granny was like their mamm, and exhausted…

  Roman and Abigail had worked hard to make her old age special. They built a little dawdyhaus cattycorner to the big old white farmhouse and it was easy to maintain. They had a team of men dig a large fishing hole behind the house for her husband Jeb and it kept him smiling. The wraparound porch made a wonderful trellis for her climbing red roses. She sat with Jeb many nights on the porch swing taking in the aroma. Now it was mingled with the scents of dried cornstalks and Macintosh apples that the wind blew in from the fields.

  She took the last of the wool from her basket and fed it to her wheel. Her black lab, Jack, darted off the porch to make his daily run. He could hear the girls little feet as soon as they started walking the quarter mile gravel driveway that led to the house. Tillie and Millie seemed like they were just in diapers, and here they were, coming home from kindergarten. Jenny was only in s
econd grade but like a little mamm to her sisters.

  Granny soon heard the sound of laughter and turned to see the girls. Her precious girls. Jenny was a picture of her Abigail. Blond hair and light blue eyes. Millie and Tillie looked like their daed, chestnut color hair and brown eyes. They were identical and only a dimple apart, her Jeb said. Millie was kissed on one cheek by an angel, forming one dent, but Tillie on both. Jeb knew how to encourage timid Tillie.

  “Oma, school is so fun,” Millie said as she ran up the stairs and hugged her grandma.

  “Wait ‘til you have to learn multiplication,” Jenny sighed. She kissed her grandma’s cheek and plopped on one of the hickory Amish rockers on the porch. Tillie was still walking up the driveway, her hands full of goldenrod, Queen Anne's lace and daisies. Jack panted close behind her. Granny felt that same gnawing feeling in her soul. She didn’t feel capable of being a mamm to these girls. Why hadn’t Roman found a wife yet? Why wasn’t he paying any attention to Lizzie?

  “What’s wrong Oma?” Jenny asked.

  Granny playfully pulled on one of Jenny’s braids. “I’d feel better if you’d help me make cinnamon flop for dessert. I have a craving for it this time of year. It washes down good with apple cider.”

  ~*~

  Later that night Granny sat at her oak kitchen table and took out her finest embossed floral stationery. She would start this knitting circle. She’d put it off long enough. Most women’s calendars in November were empty except for Tuesday or Thursday weddings. Knitting could start on Wednesday at seven o’clock. She fidgeted with her pen as she decided who to invite. She thought of Maryann. She looked too tired and needed a break. Ruth seemed to need a break too, from that husband of hers. Should she invite Ella? She just got such bad news? If Fannie came would she feel comfortable? Anxiety filled her, but she thought of the Amish proverb: Courage is fear that has said its prayers. She bowed her head for a few minutes of silent prayer and then picked up her pen and simply wrote the same thing on each card:

  Dear friend,

  I bought this beautiful floral stationary and couldn’t wait to use it. I have an abundance of yarn and would like to knit shawls to send to tornado victims of Joplin, Missouri. I’ve contacted our people at Christian Aid Ministries in Berlin, OH. They’ll distribute all shawls and assure me there is great need. We’ll start at seven on Wednesday Nov. 2nd. I do hope you can make it.

  Love, Deborah Weaver

  She’d decide who to mail them to in the morning, when everything seemed fresh.

  Maryann

  Stirring the pot of venison stew with one hand, Maryann, held the letter her daughter just gave her. “What on earth could she be thinking?”

  Becca, her oldest daughter, rolling out dough at the kitchen table looked up at her. “What’s wrong, mamm?”

  “Granny Weaver wants to start a knitting circle and wants me to come. Every week? Ach, she must be lonely, but I have too much to do.”

  “Mamm, I think you should try it. I’m fourteen and can manage here.”

  Maryann looked at her daughter fondly. She was growing into a woman. She could be married in four or five years, and she suspected it would be Gilbert Miller. “You like tending to the home, don’t you.”

  “Jah, it’s all I’ve ever wanted. To have a large family like you, mamm.”

  “And you feel you need practice? Running the home alone?”

  Becca dusted the dough with more flour. “Mamm, I don’t need practice. I have plenty of that helping you with the kinner. I just think you need a break. You look tired.”

  “That’s what other folks are saying,” she said. “But, I do have eight kinner.”

  “The lady in the yarn shop in town said knitting is goot for you. Helps you relax.”

  “But I nurse the boppli. What if she gets hungry?”

  She saw her daughter give her a wry look. “You feed her before you go to Punxsy-Mart. Why don’t you want to go?”

  “Well, I can’t knit very goot for one thing. I haven’t used a knitting loom in ages. I have your oma’s but never use it. It’s up in the attic.”

  “I’d love to learn how to knit on Oma’s loom. It would be such a link to her.”

  Maryann puckered her lips and put her pointer finger on her cheek. “Why don’t you go to the knitting circle? Granny would teach you to spin wool too.”

  “Mamm, are you sure?”

  Maryann collapsed on her rocker. “I’m sure.”

  Ella

  Ella started the long walk down the gravel road to get her mail. She missed going barefoot already. Autumn always meant shoes, but it was her favorite season. Selling pumpkins, Indian corn, and gourds at their roadside stand was a family tradition growing up, and when she married Zach five years ago, he built theirs, knowing how much it meant to her.

  Since no one was around, she took off her bonnet and took a spin on the tire swing Zach had tied to the old oak tree by the pond. She leaned back and admired the yellow and orange leaves that swirled overhead. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, taking in the crisp air. She brought the swing to a halt and the silence of the day made her feel like she was in a sacred place. She bowed her head and whispered, “Lord, I love all this beauty you’ve made. It’s a wonder to behold.”

  She continued to sit quietly for a few minutes. Something welled up in her and she brushed away a tear. “A baby is a beautiful thing too. Seems like you created me to not have one.” She took the corner of her white apron and dabbed her eyes. “Zach made this swing hoping to see kinner on it, but it just won’t be. Help me to carry this burden Lord. Help my dear Zach too.”

  She got off the swing and continued to the mailbox. When she opened the box, she wasn’t surprised to see a letter from Granny. She wrote often with some scripture or word of encouragement. The red roses that dotted the envelope made her heart warm. She ripped it open and quickly read the short note. “A knitting circle…but who would be there? Women and their kinner? A sharp pain ran through her stomach. At twenty-seven, it was getting harder to carry on a conversation with other women. Everyone talked about their kinner. Tears misted her eyes and she looked up to the clear blue sky. God had a plan, unique for her. She put the card in her apron pocket and headed back to her house. She’d go to that knitting circle. Maybe Granny asked her so she could get to know her grandkinner better, and help them learn women things. She could be like a mamm to them. God worked in mysterious ways, for sure and for certain.

  Fannie

  Fannie pulled her buggy out of Miller’s Variety Store. She looked at the list her mamm made. She was sure she forgot something: oatmeal, sugar, cinnamon, butter, yeast, cream of wheat, baking powder, salt, molasses, and honey. Yes, she got it all. She clicked her tongue, signaling her horse to move. Living so close to the food co-op made life easier; seeing Jonas Miller try to run the store, struggling to walk using his arm crutches, made her count her blessings. Seeing his daughter Lizzie as an old maidel made her shiver though. Would that be her someday? Always living at home?

  Fannie believed if she didn’t have a figure the size of their milk cow she’d have a husband. She’d have Hezekiah, the one she had her heart set on. But word had it he was taking home skinny little Lottie after Sunday singings. She could feel her teeth starting to grind and opened her mouth to make herself stop. Why were some women as thin as a rail and others fat? Oh, her mamm said she was big boned, but she heard the emphasis on BIG.

  She looked at all the Black Angus cows behind the barbwire fence as she drove the short distance to her house. She usually walked since they lived two farms down, but the bags were too heavy this time. Several cows meandered toward the road and mooed at her. Birds of a feather flock together, she thought. Oh, why didn’t the delicate little hummingbirds at her feeder flock toward her? No, cows did. They thought she was one of them, most likely.

  She pulled into the gravel driveway and stopped the buggy. She bounded out to get the mail. She opened the mailbox and took the floral card and ripped
it open. Granny wrote such encouraging letters. She read the note, and sighed. What if Lottie’s at this knitting circle? Or Lavina Yoder, who was smaller yet? She’d look ridiculous hovering over her knitting loom if she sat between them.

  She skimmed through the short letter. Joplin, Missouri. She had kin in Missouri who wrote and told of the devastation the tornadoes left behind. Winters got cold there too, and a wool shawl would warm a body, Amish or not. She had a friend who volunteered at Christian Aid Ministries in Ohio. She told her they flew cows into a Romanian orphanage. How could you fly a cow? Wouldn’t it be too heavy?

  She slipped it in her apron pocket. She’d go, only because it was for a good cause.

  Ruth

  Ruth put two year old Micah down for a nap and went down to her kitchen. She pumped water into her stainless steel kettle. Most women had gravity fed water with modern plumbing in the home; her husband, Luke, thought things were making life too easy for the Amish. How he’d rant that soon the community would be New Order. She knew from letters from her cousins in Lancaster they were still very old-fashioned. No diesel tractors being pulled by horses here in Smicksburg. No gas powered modern refrigerators too. She looked over at her icebox. Maybe the ways of Lancaster Amish were better. No need to haul ice to the chest. Most men gladly replenished the ice for their wives, but not Luke.

  She gazed out the window at her birdfeeder. Yellow and brown finches peacefully perched on their cylinder feeder. They didn’t squawk at each other like the cardinals and blue jays that fought over the sunflower seeds in their large wooden feeder. She and Luke were like cardinals and blue jays. Why couldn’t they live in harmony like finches? She wasn’t the quiet girl Luke thought he married. He wasn’t charming either. She looked again at the birds. Why couldn’t I fly away too?